


Safe Home

by falls_the_shadow



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Badly Injured Hannibal, First Kiss, Imaginary Bedelia, Injury Recovery, Intimacy, M/M, Murder, Nightmares, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Slow Burn, Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-10-05
Packaged: 2018-04-21 04:28:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4815047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falls_the_shadow/pseuds/falls_the_shadow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In other moments, Bedelia sits across from him, face poised in the typical mix of curiosity and resignation he is sure she reserves only for him and for Hannibal. “What would you say this is,” she asks, “this place where you stand now? Is it the gates of hell? Or the mouth?”</p><p> Will’s throat is dry, and the morning breeze moves through him as if totally unhindered by his individual atoms, and he does not know the answer to that question.</p><p>**Edited. No major changes, just some fixing up of imagery and whatnot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been slowly going through and editing this over a period of months when I feel like it, though there are parts I'm still not happy with. I've been thinking of writing more so I figured I would start by editing--which I always prefer ;) 
> 
> Comments are still very much appreciated! 
> 
>    
> Non-Beta. Mistakes are mine.

Before Will can remember who he is or what has happened to him, he is aware of pain.

 _Scarring, cutting, stinging, burning,_ the words attach themselves slowly to each feeling as he claws his way back to consciousness. The pain is immense, wrapping him in searing heat and inky-black darkness. It rips through him again and again, familiar, like the blade that had cut him open and sent him spilling onto the floor all those years ago. He hadn’t been in this much pain since that moment, since the ocean of blood, and Abigail's gushing neck under his fingers, and—

Hannibal.

Suddenly he is aware, and every memory is his again, not a far-flung dream, but a real thing that had happened to him. Because of him. He opens his eyes and feels the pain focus acutely his face, his shoulder, his arm. There is a groan near him, a sound that begins far away and muffled as if it is under water, and then ripples closer. So near that he thinks he must have created the sound himself. He experiments with making noises, gruff and small, and finds the moans are different coming from his lips, and that his face screams in anger when he makes them. 

“Will…” comes a voice beside him, washed amid waves of heavy breathes. “Will…”

He blinks and turns his head toward the sound, and there is Hannibal, lying on his stomach, face contorted. He’s soaked in salt water, his clothes cling to him, and his every breath rattles with the water in his lungs. Will is unsure how he moves, how he is capable of it, but he rolls to his side and gropes for Hannibal’s arm.

“What are we doing here?” he asks, and his voice too bubbles with the water still left in his throat.

Hannibal coughs and water streams from his lips as he lifts himself onto his elbows. “You decided we should die,” he says. “I made another decision.”

Will flexes his fingers around Hannibal’s arm, testing his strength, as he looks around. They are on a narrow beach, only a few feet wide and even fewer deep. The cliff face rises up behind them, the sun in front of them. Hannibal had managed to find the only place where the cliff had worn away enough to create its own sandbar, surrounded on 3 sides by smooth rock that bent inward as it climbed, as if to tower over them, threatening to fall.

“I don’t remember the water,” Will says, though he can feel it now, seeping into every wound, joining with the sand beneath him to chafe at any exposed flesh. His eyes sting. His cheek throbs.

Hannibal groans loudly as he uses one arm to flip himself onto his back. His eyes are watering, and Will remembers the gunshot wound. He does not have to imagine the pain Hannibal must be in. He can remember it.

“You were unconscious after the impact.” Hannibal breathes between every couple of words. “I was able to drag us through the waves to this place. We were very lucky.”

Will would shake his head if he knew ragged bits of his cheek wouldn’t flap painfully when he did. “I don’t think I would call this lucky.” And then he’s up, on his knees, moving. They can’t stay here. Hannibal is shot, they are both bleeding, they left a dead man on the cliff above. They are wanted. He grasps Hannibal’s side with one hand, his opposite arm with the other, and begins to pull him up.

“Will—,” Hannibal croaks out between breaths, reaching up to grip Will’s arms. His eyes look wild for a moment, anger and pain flashing together.

“We have to go,” Will says. He’s shaking now. The cold and salt are seeping into him. His skin is tight and raw and sensitive, like the whole of him is one giant exposed nerve. “We have to go, you have to get up.”

Hannibal looks up at Will and for a moment his face is the same mask as it so often is, and then a small, weak smile pushes at his mouth. “I’m afraid I may be dead weight,” he breathes. “I’ve lost a lot of blood.”

“It's fine,” Will says before he even thinks. “It's fine, I’ve got you, just…try to—,” He leans down and places his shoulder between Hannibal’s arm and torso, wraps his arms around the whole of him, and heaves.

It _hurts._ It tears both of their wounds wider and flexes their fatigued muscles, and both of them give long, heavy groans of pain into the other’s shoulder, but eventually both of them are standing. Hannibal is unsteady, he leans against Will, his hands griping Will’s shirt the way he had on the cliff before the fall.  Will was hoping to find some warmth in Hannibal’s body to ease the trembling, but he is cold, wet, and pale, just like Will.

Hannibal raises his arm for a short moment and points toward the face of the cliff. “There.”

There is a wooden staircase, its mouth hidden in shadows, which cuts into the bluff and zigzags upward toward the surface. _Good,_ Will thinks, but he only has the strength in that moment to nod, before wrapping one arm around Hannibal’s back, throwing Hannibal’s arm around his shoulders, and pulling them both forward.

Hannibal is not totally dead weight, his feet catch him on nearly every step, hold him up, shuffle him forward. But he leans heavily on Will, bent over slightly, free hand alternating between gripping his own side where the bullet wound seeps slowly, to Will's stomach where he tugs at his shirt and grasps lightly at flesh. They reach the foot of the steps and Will begins to drag them both up, one step at a time, willing both Hannibal’s and his own body to move, to be strong enough, at least, to get them to the top.

Ten steps. Fifteen. Twenty-three.

“There is another place,” Hannibal says through gritted teeth and long breaks for breath. Forty-five steps. “Another house." Fifty-seven. "Not near here but..." Seventy. 

“Don’t talk,” Will says. He can see the top of the steps but Hannibal is getting heavier. “Concentrate. Look at me.” Will uses his arm to jerk Hannibal closer. Their eyes meet and Hannibal’s rasping breaths are all he can hear.  “Look at me,” he says, “and move. We’re close. Just keep moving.”

And Hannibal does.

 _Strength,_ Will thinks as they trod the last remaining steps to the surface, _That is what I can always count on from you, isn’t it, Hannibal?_

They both nearly fall over on their final step, pitching forward with the realization that their bodies no longer have to move upward, but Will catches them, and they stay stuck together, swaying and holding onto each other as they each try to regain their breath. They have arrived at a small overlook off the side of the road that winds along the cliff's edge, the road that took them to Hannibal's secret home. There are two periscopes on either side of the paved area, where people can pull over and pay a nickel to take in the view. All around them is silence. There are no cars on the road this close to dawn.

“How far did you take us from where we fell?” Will huffs, glancing up at Hannibal and realizing he's been watching him this entire time. 

“I lost track of the distance,” Hannibal’s breaths fight for purchase in his own lungs;watching him inhale is exhausting. “Far,” he adds, “I hope.”

Will blinks at him. _Strength._

“Where is this other place of yours?” He asks, mostly dragging Hannibal now to a tree on the right side of the overlook.  He lets Hannibal steady himself on the trunk before helping him sit. Hannibal’s eyes are watering again as he lifts his face up to look at Will. Will rests his finger tips on Hannibal’s shoulder and closes his eyes, feels the still-damp press of Hannibal’s hand over his own. He thinks how fortunate it is that they are both so cold from the water. They are losing blood more slowly this way. Still, he needs to get Hannibal somewhere safe. They are silent for several long moments and Will is filled with the urge to say, “I’m sorry.” He hadn’t expected to feel sorry. He hadn’t expected to feel anything at all.

Hannibal’s voice shakes him from the place in his mind. “It’s nearly two hours from here. We’ll need a car.” He glances out at the road.

Will says nothing. He squeezes Hannibal’s shoulder once, then steps away toward the road. He removes his shirt, still damp with sea water and wraps it haphazardly around his head to hide his face. It's all he can think to do. He stands at the side of the road with his feet spread apart, arms limp, fighting to stay upright. He waits.

Several silent, unknowably long minutes go by. The crash of waves far below is all he can hear, except for the moments when he allows the metallic thump and squelch of a knife entering flesh to permeate reality. If he closes his eyes, he can go back to that darkened patio where there was only the Dragon, Hannibal, and Someone-not-quite-Him fighting for dominance, each of them more color, light, and movement than human.

In other moments, Bedelia sits across from him, face poised in the typical mix of curiosity and resignation he is sure she reserves only for him and for Hannibal. “What would you say this is,” she asks, “this place where you stand now? Is it the gates of hell? Or the mouth?”

Will’s throat is dry, and the morning breeze moves through him as if totally unhindered by his individual atoms, and he does not know the answer to that question.

A forest green Escort is the only car to come by in the stretch of time—15 minutes, or maybe an hour?—that Will waits by the road. It stops for Will because he steps in front of it, arms outstretched, thinking he must make a strange sight with his shirt wrapped around his face like this. He feels the blood create small amorphous blots on his undershirt that trickle down his skin and itch as a man--short, but thick like a tree trunk--exits the car with wide eyes.

Will makes sure to shake impressively as he tells the driver through the folds of his shirt that he needs help. He’s hurt, and so is his friend. Could the man please come and look at him, help them get to a hospital?

The man, a head shorter than Will, bald spot visible, moves across the front of his car to where Will stands, looks over in the direction Will is pointing, at Hannibal, and takes a step toward the trees. “What’s wrong with your face?” he asks, glancing back at Will for a moment with more apprehension than concern.

“It’s been a hard day,” Will says as he wraps a swift arm around the man’s neck and squeezes.

 

* * *

 

Will has to put Hannibal on his back to get him to the car. He lays Hannibal across the back seat as gently as he can manage, and gropes for the ends of his sweater. He peeks the fabric, wet with blood and salt water equally, up over Hannibal’s wound. Hannibal's eyes follow his movements, eyelids fluttering and then closing, slowly, his limbs going soft.

Will takes Hannibal’s chin in his hands, fingers and thumb pressing into his face, and shakes him. “Look at me,” he says, “Stay awake. I’m going to wrap my shirt around the wound—don’t—,” he shakes Hannibal again, “go to sleep. Look at me. Promise me.”

Beneath his fingers he feels Hannibal’s cheeks lift to form a small and bitter smile, “I promise, Will.” His hand reaches up to touch the collar of Will’s undershirt, passing over his neck and up to his good cheek. Will lets him, pushing into Hannibal’s palm.

“Tell me where to take us.” Will turns his face so Hannibal’s thumb grazes the corner of his lips as he speaks. “Tell me where it’s safe.”

Hannibal’s eyes close again for a moment and Will thinks he’s losing him, before he begins to describe the rout that will take them far from this cliff, and this moment. They’ll head for the mountains, there is a place in the forest that no one knows about. It’s quiet there.

Will takes his fine white shirt, already ruined by a hundred terrible, beautiful little acts, and wraps it around Hannibal’s torso, pulling the arms tight around the wound. Hannibal groans and grips Will’s arm.

“Stay awake.” Will says as he pulls away and places himself in the driver’s seat. He puts the car in drive and is looking up and down both ends of the road when Hannibal’s voice comes to him, quiet and careful.

“Did you kill that man, Will?”

Will takes only a moment to look back at his grinning face in the rear-view mirror before pulling off onto the road.  


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Poorly-researched medical care described here. Hopefully it doesn't come off as completely ridiculous. That's not why you're here anyway, right?

The place Hannibal directs them to is so heavily shaded by thick-trunked coniferous trees that it is dim at mid-day.  They took so many odd turns in unexpected places to get here that Will doesn’t know how Hannibal remembers them all, especially with his eyes fixed on the roof of the car. Less than ten miles east of them, the mountains stretch upward, and the earth around them is craggy and uneven in preparation for the coming change. 

Will can see, at the end of a miles-long dirt road covered in a thick layer of pine needles, a small house, tucked away, camouflaged by the colors of the forest around it. The house is one story, architecturally simplistic, and inside Will doubts there are very many of the amenities Hannibal is used to. The house on the cliff was elaborate and unique like so many things Will had come to associate with Hannibal, a place to take the dearly loved and the nearly dead. This is not a place Hannibal would choose to take anyone. Even the air around it is different, stale and soaked in hurried, anxious necessity. Bottled fear.

“Everything we need is inside.” Hannibal says between long, controlled breaths. A gray tint has moved in under his skin, and his eyes are glossy, but they remain open as Will pulls the car up close to the house and gets out. Lifting Hannibal from the car and hearing no groans of pain, Will is sure he is only awake, perhaps even alive, through stubborn force of will.

With one hand under Hannibal’s arms and one across his chest, he drags them to the front door. Before he can ask, Hannibal is reaching out his free arm to pry a chunk of wood from the door frame and lifting a key from its hiding place, embedded in the siding.

“Bit easy, isn’t that?” Will asks, voice strained under the weight of Hannibal’s body and his own fatigue.

“When I am no longer bleeding to death, I will be highly amenable to any suggestions you have for better key placement, Will.” Hannibal’s lips string the words together carelessly, but he smiles a moment and something in Will’s chest unclenches.

The inside of the house seems less cramped than Will had assumed it would be from the outside. The front door leads directly into the kitchen with a small eating area off to the left. Hannibal motions toward one of the chairs there, and Will sets him down gently and moves the other chair over to face him. “There are bandages and supplies in the bathroom,” Hannibal points toward a dark little room back near the front door. His hand shakes noticeably before he lets it fall limp into his lap. “And blankets in the linen closet.”

Will is a blur moving throughout the small space, grabbing up any supplies he can find, and taking in what he can see of their safe house. A double-doored archway near the kitchen table seems to lead to a bedroom whose windows face out toward the driveway. A small doorway off the opposite wall of the kitchen leads to the back, to a room full of windows where Will can see small patches of sunlight pooling on the floor. There may be more to this place, but Will doesn’t take the time to look. He dumps the supplies on the table and unfolds a blanket to wrap around Hannibal, then another for himself.

“We have to stitch your cheek,” Hannibal mutters, hands moving up to cup Will’s face. His lips are pale as he speaks.

Will grabs his wrists and forces them into his lap. “You first.”

“I will be fine,” Hannibal says. He looks down at his lap, at Will’s hands on his. “If the bullet had hit anything vital I would be dead by now. I need a bandage and some rest… you need stitches. And your shoulder…” Hannibal trails off, body listing to one side as his eyes begin to close.

“Hannibal!” Will catches him by the arms and sits him upright. “Stay awake. Stay with me.”

Hannibal’s eyes flutter back open and it seems a great effort for him to lift his head. He looks at Will with eyes dulled by shock and fatigue. “Of course,” Hannibal says. “Where else would I go?"

Will watches Hannibal breath and something big and heavy and painful gathers itself up and forms a ball inside his chest.  He simply nods, reaching for the edges of Hannibal’s sweater, and begins to lift it up over his stomach. “Can you lift your arms?”

Hannibal stares at him, gray features still. Slowly, with a great effort, he lifts his arms above his head. Bruising has begun to flower around Hannibal’s wound, but the steady stream of blood seems to have slowed nearly to nothing. As Will pulls the sweater from the ends of Hannibal’s wrists he grunts and leans forward, and Will instinctively catches Hannibal’s damp forehead with his own.

“I’m sorry,” Will says, before he can stop himself this time. He feel’s Hannibal’s whole body shudder, and reaches up to pull the blanket back around his shoulders. Hannibal doesn’t ask what exactly he is sorry for, but he looks at Will, his dark eyes very close, and Will feels the weight in his chest crawl into his throat as if to choke him.

He dabs Hannibal’s wound with a warm, damp cloth, reaching around to wipe at the entry wound in his back, until he’s satisfied it’s clean. He moves around to tape a square bandage to his back, then one to his front, pressing gently with one hand and whispering more apologies.

Before he can pull away, Hannibal’s hand covers his own and begins to push the bandage in on the wound, hard. He lets out a snarl.

“Hannibal—,” Will stutters. His hand is being pressed hard into Hannibal’s abdomen, forcing choked noises from Hannibal’s throat. “Stop!”

“The pain will help me focus,” Hannibal growls through a clenched jaw, twisting his neck to place his head against Will’s shoulder and leaning heavily into him. “I still have to patch your face.” He pushes Will’s hand harder against his wound. Desperate, low gasps escape him, his lips and teeth grazing skin, his hot breath blooming across Will’s neck.

Will freezes in place, unable to free himself from Hannibal's grasp, and knowing there's not point in fighting. It reminds him so much of other times they've been close like this, with their roles reversed. Long, sharp memories where he is bleeding and shaking and desperate, and Hannibal closes the space between them as if to comfort him, even as he tears him apart. Will reaches his other hand up to the back of Hannibal's neck and runs a soft hand over his hair. Familiar, he hopes. A reciprocation. He doesn’t know when he started trembling.  “Hannibal," he says again, quietly. "Stop." 

Another second goes by, another heartbeat that Will can hear thundering in his ears, then Hannibal releases the pressure on his wound, and begins to pull away. Without thinking, Will brings both hands to Hannibal’s shoulder and draws him back in, bringing his good cheek to the side of Hannibal’s face and holding them there. He’s still shaking, and Hannibal is panting out short heavy breaths near his ear, a few of which are punctuated with his name. Will clings as if to steady Hannibal, to be the anchor, but he knows his own moorings aren’t sturdy enough, and he’s still more accustomed to being the boat tossing on the waves than the rock to which it’s tethered. Still, Hannibal’s breathing calms gradually and a comfortable silence fills the space between them.

“Will, we should finish with my bandages so I can look at your face,” Hannibal says eventually, and Will notes that some of the focus has returned to his voice, that familiar exactness with which he forms each word.

Will breathes a full breath for the first time in minutes, and pulls away. Without speaking, he reaches for the roll of gauze and begins to wind it around Hannibal’s torso, careful not to wrap it too tightly. Hannibal watches the movement, glancing up at Will only once, face blank but for a softness in his eyes.  Hannibal brings his hand up to brush Will’s wrist when he’s satisfied that the bandage will hold, and cuts and tapes it himself. He still looks exhausted, and the grey tint of his skin has not gone, but he is here with Will, awake and alert. He watches Hannibal begin to thread a needle with surprisingly steady fingers, and feels that hot weight force itself down, pouring over his spine and settling in the pit of his stomach. "I'm sorry," he says again, this time with purpose.

Hannibal looks up for only a second, and his face does not change. But when he takes the needle to Will's cheek, the palm of one hand comes up to cradle Will's jaw, soft and gentle, and his thumb makes small, faint circles over his skin. 

 

* * *

 

A short time later, Will stands at the bathroom mirror and presses the tips of his fingers gently into the stitches on his cheek. The skin is inflamed, red, and searing as if his face were being held over a fire, but the wound is clean, and Hannibal’s stitches are neat and tidy.

“It is not good for you to dwell on how it looks now,” Hannibal’s voice comes to him from the other end of the house, where he’s still seated at the kitchen table. “You’ll have to be very careful with it for a long time, but if we keep a close watch on it, the scarring will be minimal.”

Will laughs and the effort of doing so without moving his face makes it sound more bitter than he’d expected. He looks at the bandage over his right shoulder, covering a new knife wound very similar to the one he’d received as a cop. On his left shoulder, the scar from when Jack had shot him is still as visible as the day he’d left the hospital. The raised line on his forehead had long been daily reminder of what happens when you place yourself at the mercy of a killer. Now, he thinks, he has his cheek for that. Will is used to scars, but each new one means another story he cannot tell, another time in his life others will never understand. And this scar is particularly ugly.

Will exits the bathroom, stiff muscles making him hobble more than walk, to the island that makes up most of the counter space in the open kitchen area. He rests his elbows on the wood and sighs. Hannibal watches him from his spot at the table. “I can keep it clean and be careful not to break the stitches, but I don’t think anything will keep me from looking like Frankenstein’s monster.” He means it. He was half way there before this fresh cut.

Hannibal turns to face him, adjusting each limb one at a time, careful not to twist at the waist. He looks at him with a strange earnestness that makes Will itch beneath his skin. “Is that how you feel? Like Frankenstein’s monster.”

Will shrugs, “Sometimes.”

“You bear many scars from a life surrounded by men and their monstrous deeds, but you are nobody’s monster.”

Will smiles, but his face is half frozen. He must look crooked as he says, “Not even yours?”

Hannibal frowns, his eyes dropping to the floor as he says, “Come here, Will.”

Will does. He takes his place across from Hannibal, who immediately reaches up to check the quality of his stitches one more time, before cupping the good side of Will’s face with one hand. “Frankenstein never appreciated the beauty nor the autonomy of his creation,” he says quietly. “You are not a source of fear or regret for me, Will. You are something much more precious.”

Will doesn’t know what to say. He never knows what to say in these moments, and there have been a few, when Hannibal’s palm is warming his face, and his eyes are holding Will’s gaze and he's saying things that Will already knew, things he has always known, but that have never had the weight that they do at this moment. He feels trapped and liberated all at once, like he’s suffocating on oxygen.

Hannibal saves him from the silence he created. Smiling with one corner of his mouth, he says, “We have many things to discuss, don’t we?”

Will nods, feels Hannibal’s thumb drag across his cheekbone.

“But perhaps not today,” Hannibal drops his hand, and looks away, surveying the space around them. “I think it would be best if we let the rest of this day slip away from us. It’s been very long already.”

Will breathes out a laugh, “God, yes.”

“Good. Then we’ll sleep. We should be safe enough here for the time being.” Hannibal reaches out his arm to Will, who helps him stand.  

“You can take the bed,” Will says, almost instinctively, as if he’s on some kind of family trip. It feels strange as soon as he says it.

Hannibal stares at him, blinks once. “If that is what you would prefer.”

Will nods, takes a couple of steps back from Hannibal. “I think I'll take a shower. There’s a couch in that back room, right?”

Hannibal nods, still watching Will with a curious look in his eyes, his face working into the barest shadow of a smile. “Cover your cheek with something before showering,” he says simply, and turns toward the bedroom.

 ***

Will does shower, but only briefly, scrubbing soap as quickly as he can over his body so his skin can breath beneath the layer of ocean salt, and he can stop smelling like dried blood. When he gets out he finds a spare pair of clothes has been left on the kitchen table for him, and Hannibal has drawn the curtains in the bedroom. He’s asleep on his back, one arm over his stomach, breathing steadily.

Will brings the extra blankets to the back room, which he finds contains a couch, two chairs, and a low table. 3 of the walls are mostly windows that stare out at the rocky tree-coated landscape behind the house. The sun has moved to its highest point and what little light makes it through the thick canopy of trees doesn’t fall onto the couch. He'd be able to sleep either way. He’s never been so exhausted.

But there is still something else he has to do.

Off of the sunroom, there is a small darkened hall that he hadn’t noticed in his quick survey of the house. Will is not at all surprised to find that this hallway leads to a pantry with a large freezer that sits along the right wall. It speaks volumes that, even when in hiding, Hannibal has never expected to stop needing a place to store his meat.

Will does his best to keep his footsteps quiet as he pads barefoot back through the kitchen to the front door. He walks carefully across the pine-needle path to the car, and comes around to the trunk. It pops open under the press of his fingers, and he stares down at the stiff body of the short, balding man who had pulled over to help them. The man who had looked at Will with so much fear the moment before he’d snapped his neck.


	3. Chapter 3

There is fluid in Will’s mouth, in his lungs. He tastes salt and metal, and everything around him is darkness and crashing waves. He’s tossed forward and back, forward and back by the movement of the tide. His body is a stone, sinking, sinking, until something tugs at the collar of his shirt, jerking him upward. Cold air hits his face, and someone is saying his name. He is dragged through mire too thick to be water. He does not open his eyes, but he doesn’t need to. He is familiar with the sensation of drowning in blood.

In the lapse of a second, he is standing at a cliff’s edge, jagged rocks and uneven earth bathed in moonlight. He hears a sound behind him, the ragged breaths of someone struggling in their last moments, and he turns to find the Dragon, blood like wings spreading out around him, the skin of his throat torn away, his eyes fixed on the sky. He is motionless, trapped forever in the moment of his becoming, never getting to know what it is like to simply be. Will takes small steps toward him, looks at the expression of glassy-eyed surprise on his face, and understands that feeling perfectly. 

Will blinks and the Dragon is gone. The world warps around him, all colors and light, and when it stills again he sees the man, whose name he’d never learned, on the ground before him. The now broken man who had stopped at the side of the road to help and then made the mistake of looking at Will as if he were something to be feared.

 _I am something to be feared,_ he thinks.

The man is no longer breathing; he is no longer a man. His head is twisted on his body, so that even lying on his stomach, his eyes stare firmly up at Will, watching as he watches, accusing him of what he already knows he’s done.

There is the soft click of heels on the ground beside him, and Bedelia is there, feeling more like a void than a presence. She stares down at the man with indifference.

“What have you done?” she says, slowly, voice low and steady.

Will does not try to speak, does not have any words prepared, but all at once he hears himself saying, “What I had to do.”

“Is that so?” Bedelia turns to look at him. Out of the corner of his eye he can see her golden hair shining as if lit from within, her eyes dark and questioning.

“He would have told someone,” Will says, and loathes the calmness and certainty in his own voice. “If I had left him alive he would have been found. He would have told someone he’d seen us. Jack would know we’re alive.”  

Bedelia takes a few purposeful steps forward until she is within an inch of him, and the warm breeze that surrounds him is replaced by the feeling of her breath on his face. “Do you want to know what I think?”

“No.” Will breathes.

Bedelia laughs, once, a harsh sound too loud in his ear. She leans into him until her lips are brushing against his skin. “I think you looked at this little man and you saw what I would have seen—what Hannibal would have seen. Vulnerability.  And, instead of wanting to help,” she places a cold hand on his neck, slim fingers gripping tightly, nails digging into his flesh, “you _crushed_ him.”

Will lifts a hand to Bedelia’s wrist and drags her fingers from his throat. He pulls away just enough to face her and holds her wrist tight to her side as he leans in, searching the look in her eyes for fear and finding none. “It did save me a great deal of trouble,” he says, and feels his face pull itself into a smile.

Bedelia regards him with her head tilted to the side, her eyes roving over his face. “Have you begun to understand where you are yet? Which version of hell you are poised at the opening of?” She doesn’t wait for an answer, instead pressing the tips of her fingers to his lips before turning her back and stepping over the broken man as she moves into the spaces where the moonlight can’t reach her.

Then everything is black and the only thing Will understands is that he’s falling.  

***

By the time Will realizes he has woken up, he’s already sitting upright on the couch. His lungs are heaving and his vocal chords make choked, desperate noises as the air is forced past them, out and in, over and over. His shaking hands reach up to his face and run themselves through his hair. He is soaked in sweat. It’s all very familiar but no less upsetting than it has ever been. The air around him is cool and dry. The sky outside the windows is darkening, the sun having already dipped beyond a horizon he cannot see. He’s not drowning, he has to tell himself even as he twists to place his feet on the floor. He’s not falling, or bleeding, or dying, but none of these thoughts are of any real comfort.

He sits for a long time with his elbows on his knees, head in his hands. The couch and blanket below him are damp with his sweat. Beads of it trail down his back and send shivers through his body. The room and the world around the house are dark before he is able to stop shaking, and slowly he wills his sore muscles to move. He can see his own reflection in the windows as he stands. His hair clings to his forehead, his face is nearly the same color as the bandage on his cheek. He imagines he can actually see his heart pounding fast in his chest.

Hannibal is still asleep on his back in the exact same position Will had last seen him. He’s left one side of the bed completely open and Will doesn’t question why, but only because he doesn’t have to. The sweat on his skin has begun to evaporate, leaving him cold and wanting for even the slightest bit of comfort. With no hesitation he climbs into the open side of the bed and draws the blankets up to his chin. He lies on his side, facing away from Hannibal and curls inward. He prays that this sleep will not bring him back to the taste of blood on his tongue, or the sound of Bedelia’s voice in his ear.

Hannibal’s breathing is steady and unburdened. Will listens and lets it fill all the spaces in his mind until a restful sleep finally comes to him.              

***

The sun is high overhead before the feeling of movement in the space around Will forces him to climb out of unconsciousness and open his eyes. The bedroom is bright, white sunlight peaking in through every crack in the drawn curtains and falling in streaks across the bed, across Will’s face. There is an emptiness next to him, a lack of heat and weight, and he rolls himself onto his back to see what’s changed.

Hannibal is sitting up on the edge of the bed, facing the opposite wall. His arms rest on either side of him, fingers splayed out across the bed. He is very still.

Will can’t help himself. “Ding dong, the Ripper is not dead,” he says, voice a little hoarse.

Hannibal’s shoulders hunch forward just a moment and a laugh, one of surprise, escapes him before he groans and brings a hand to his side where the bandages still hold him together. Slowly, he brings his legs around to the side and turns with them, careful, stiff, but the look on his face is one of contentment. “Good morning, Will,” he says, then looks around them at the brightness pervading the entire house beyond their room. “Though I suppose it must be late afternoon by now.”

“We slept a while.” Will says.

Hannibal nods, “You slept here.”

“Yeah.” Will lifts himself onto his elbows, only glancing at Hannibal a moment. “The springs in the couch poked me.”

Hannibal takes a moment and fills it with silence as his eyes move over all of Will, a knowing smirk inching up his face. “Is that so?”

“Yes, Hannibal.” Will sighs as he uses his good arm to sit himself upright. He brings his feet over the side of the bed and feels the floor beneath him. It grounds him in a way it couldn’t the night before. He keeps his eyes closed against the memory of waking up drenched, unable to steady himself, unable to bear being alone with his own dreams.

They’re both silent for a moment as Hannibal stands, and Will feels the bed shift beneath him with the loss of a counter-weight. Hannibal walks slowly, arm across his torso, to the doorway and surveys their little hideaway. Will wonders if he’s thinking the same thing, that this place looks warmer, gentler, now that the threat of death is not hanging over them.

At least, not their own deaths.

“I need to tell you something.” Will says quietly, so quietly that when it takes Hannibal a few moments to respond, Will finds himself hoping he hadn’t actually been heard.

But then Hannibal, still looking out at the rest of the sunlit house, takes in a measured breath that Will watches swell in his chest, and says, “Did you take that man’s body out of the trunk?”

Will’s breath stops in his throat for less than a second, his fists clenching in the bedsheets, before he reminds himself that he shouldn’t be surprised. “Yes,” he says.

“And did you put him in the freezer?”

“Yes.”

Now Hannibal looks back at him, expression unreadable, “All of him?”

Will blinks. “Yes,” he says again. “I didn’t—I wasn’t about to…” Will chokes on his words, his throat closing up around them, and he brings his hands up over his face and hair again, thankful that this time at least they aren’t soaked in sweat.

He doesn’t hear Hannibal come closer as much as he feels it in the shifting of molecules around him. They electrify as if Hannibal is made of static and heat. Will watches as Hannibal comes to sit next to him and places a gentle hand on his knee.

“Will,” he says, “tell me why you killed that man.”

It sounds like the beginning of one of their stranger therapy sessions. “You really don’t know?”

Hannibal leans in so their shoulders press together just for a moment, “I think it would be good for you to say it.” Then, as a quiet afterthought, “And good for me to hear it.”

Will nods. His hands drop to his lap and he clenches them, watching the muscles in his arms flex and move. He’d already said it once. He’d told Bedelia that it had been the practical, sensible thing to do. But she didn’t believe him. “I don’t know,” he says finally.

“Don’t you?” Hannibal releases Will’s knee and turns to regard him directly, head tilted the way he does when he’s asking questions he already knows the answer to. “I’m sure it occurred to you, Will, that you could have left me there. You could have gone with that man, and he would have taken you back to Jack if you had wanted it. I may very well have bled out leaning up against that tree, but that man would still be alive.”

Will shakes his head and remembers the moment before he’d grabbed the man by his neck at the overlook. He’d considered a lot of things that could have left the man alive, but pretending he was alone and being taken back to Jack, to Molly, to his old life, was not one of them. He laughs a little at the thought and sees Hannibal’s face harden almost imperceptibly. “Is that what you thought when you were sitting there? That I might leave you to die?”

“I considered it one possibility.” Hannibal’s voice is matter-of-fact, but his eyes leave Will’s face as he says it.

Will laughs again, derisive. “Then you must not think very much of your own handy-work, Dr. Lecter.”  His arm brushes Hannibal aside and he stands, moves away so he can be followed, into the light of the kitchen. He hadn’t expected to feel angry. Perhaps the feeling isn’t his. “It’s been over five years, do you know that?”

“Yes." Hannibal says, understanding immediately. His voice is gruff with the effort of getting up.

“Five years of you has meant a lot of things for me, but mostly it's meant watching you get whatever you want, while I get dragged along by my neck." Will doesn't look back at Hannibal, but stares down at his own hands; he tugs at his fingers as if there is something he can't wash off. 

"I don't recall dragging you to Italy, Will," Hannibal says, and his tone carries that familiar hint of danger he usually reserves for people he isn't so fond of. 

"Please," Will says, an exaggerated weariness spilling from his mouth like tar, " _please_ lets not pretend that wasn't all part of your elaborate plan. That everything that's happened from the moment we met hasn't been leading exactly here."

The air around him charges again and he knows that Hannibal is behind him. He turns slowly, and sees Hannibal regarding him, sees that behind the consciously constructed mask, a pool of anger exists. It permeates the space around them. Will steps into it, feels it fill him up.  “And you really thought that I could have _chosen_ to leave you? As if I have ever had a choice? I don't, Hannibal. I used to think I did, but I don't." 

Hannibal looks at Will as if he’s been wounded. His hands reach out, then draw back before he drops them to his sides as fists. Will sees the tendons on his hands pull tight and knows Hannibal will never apologize—for any of it. He is not sorry. But that’s not what Will is asking for; it’s not even what he wants.

He doesn’t know what he wants.

“You're using selective memories to create a world that doesn't exist, Will." Hannibal says quietly. His face is calm but his anger is an ocean Will is wading in, vast and unavoidable.  “The truth is much less simple than that. You know it is. I can make plans, but I've learned that I can never truly predict your actions. I've learned that it’s best to take many possibilities into account when it comes to you. It's... easier that way.”

“Easier how?” Will spits. 

“Easier to take.” Hannibal hurls back before sighing and taking a step away from Will. He moves around him and goes to lean his back against the kitchen island, a hand pressed to the bandage on his side. He looks tired again. He keeps his face turned away from Will as he says, “You took us off of that cliff, Will. That was your choice. You meant for us to die there in the icy ocean, dashed against the rocks. I knew it was a possibility from the moment you took my hand." Will watches as Hannibal closes his eyes and knows he is picturing that moment. The two of them on the edge of the cliff, bleeding in the moonlight and clinging, to each other, to what they had just done together. Will can see it too. "If I treated you as a certainty," Hannibal says, voice much quieter now, "treated actions as predictable as anyone’s, then I may have been surprised by what you did. But I have made that mistake with you before. I will not do it again.”

Will takes a breath in the long silence that follows and feels all the anger, whoever it belonged to, leach out of him like blood and leave him empty. “You knew,” he says, taking a tentative step forward, “but you still let it happen.”

Hannibal blinks slowly, licks his lips. “It was what you wanted. I thought I could give it to you.”

Every cell in Will’s chest begins to ache all at once. He can remember taking Hannibal’s hand, both of them covered in blood the color of ink, and feeling peace the way he’d never felt it before, the way he was sure should have been impossible. Clinging to Hannibal had been clinging to that peace, all the while knowing he couldn't cling forever. It was dangerous, that peace. It had to be stopped. 

“The world is a safer place without both of us in it,” he says suddenly. “I know that now, and I knew it then. Leave even one of us here, and there will always be people who are in danger.” He steps closer, until he is beside Hannibal. The small space left between them is full of that ache in his chest. Hannibal turns his head, ever so slightly, to glance at him, and he finds himself dropping his eyes to the floor.  “But, if we both couldn’t go, then...this is better. Infinitely better, than being alone.” He closes his eyes, takes in a deep breath. “I wasn’t going to leave you by that tree, Hannibal. You don’t have to wonder about the possibilities when it comes to my actions. Not anymore.”

Hannibal is very still for a long moment. His breaths, if he is breathing at all, are so small Will can’t see them in the movement of his chest. Then, he nods, seeming suddenly to deflate. He says nothing, but one hand comes up to grip Will's forearm, and his fingers squeeze the muscle there as if testing that the moment, that Will himself, is real. 

Will stares until Hannibal’s head turns to face him. Will fights to hold his gaze,  _wanting_  for a moment, to place himself in Hannibal’s arms and go searching for that peace, that impossible calm, but he stops himself.

It’s not calm he deserves, not when there’s still a dead man in the freezer that he put there, not when he has so many decisions left to make. Not when, even now, he can see Bedelia in his periphery, waiting at the entrance of the hall to the pantry. Watching him. Determining the nature of his descent.


	4. Chapter 4

The earth is soft. It gives easily under the shovel as Will gathers it up in small mounds and tosses it aside. The soil beneath the surface is a rich brown. He watches as loosened reddish pine needles tumble into the hole he’s creating, watches the hole get wider, deeper, with every shovelful.

The work hurts. The pain in his shoulder radiates down through his arm, the burning from his new wounds mixing with the dull twang from his old ones and forcing small grunts through his throat with each sharp, calculated movement of the shovel. The skin on his cheek feels tight and stiff beneath the bandage. He has to remind himself not to stretch his face or clench his jaw as he works, or there will only be more pain.

The broken man lies, cold and stiff, next to the hole Will is creating for him. His face is pressed into the dirt, body positioned so that he can’t stare up at Will, or see what he is doing. A breeze moves through the trees around them, but the work soon starts Will sweating beneath his borrowed shirt, as the sun rises to its highest point over head, and the shadows of the trees grow shorter, offering less shade.

It needs to be a deep hole, nothing that the rain or wind can uncover, nothing that can be found. He plans to spread pine needles and pine cones over the displaced dirt until it looks natural, until no one who manages to find this place will know what he’d put there, or why. Will hopes he can ignore the pain, spreading now down his back and into his legs, for long enough to make a proper grave.

“What is this supposed to be?” Bedelia’s cool voice is somewhere in front of him. He glances away from his work for a moment and she’s standing at the other end of the hole, now wide enough to fit a small body.

“What does it look like?” Will says finally, between heavy breaths.

“It looks like an apology.” Bedelia’s high heels make small, crisp noises as she walks along the outer edge of the hole and comes to stand beside Will.

Will keeps his eyes on the hole, but can’t keep himself from seeing Bedelia, dressed as she had been the last time he’d seen her, just there in his periphery. He can feel her discontentment. “That is precisely what it is,” he tells her.

She huffs air through her nose, smirking. “I thought you did what you had to do.”

Will nods, head bent awkwardly to the side as he dips down to scoop another mound of dirt, and straightens up again to fling it to the side, where it passes just beside his image of Bedelia without her notice. “Even so.”

“Hannibal wouldn’t want you to be sorry,” she says, and her voice seems closer to him than her mouth is, it lives inside his head, inescapable. “He wouldn’t call this a loss.”

“It doesn’t matter what he would call it. This man was innocent. A loss is what this is. It’s the only thing this is.”

"Besides necessary." 

A moment of silence stretches between them as Will steps into the hole, now over a foot deep, and begins to shovel faster, focusing on the steady sound of his own breath.

“I would have left Hannibal by that tree.” Bedelia announces just when Will was beginning to hope she was gone. “I would have watched him bleed until he was unconscious, and then walked away.”

Will laughs, knowing the truth of this statement immediately. “And that’s why you’re not Blue Beard’s wife anymore.”

Bedelia isn’t listening; she’s the voice in his head that shouts over all others. “Hannibal can see that you did this for him. That you had other options, yet you chose this course with calculation and the knowledge that this man’s own actions could be used against him. He would call that participation.”

“Probably.” Will is digging like a mad man now, chucking dirt feet away from him, trying to drown out the words with the sound of his breath and the dirt giving way beneath him.

“And you are his favorite participant,” Bedelia continues. “I imagine he’s proud.” She breathes and Will can see her swell with sadistic pleasure out of the corner of his eye, “Happy. That you’re here, that you’re finally with him, in every way that matters.”

Will fights the urge to turn and swing the shovel at her, knowing it’s pointless, knowing it will only hurt himself. Still, it’s hard.

She continues. “You understand where you are now, don’t you? Standing here, creating your own mouth to hell. Ready and willing to fall through.”

 “Where I'm standing isn’t important,” Will says, straightening up enough to lean on the handle of the shovel. He doesn’t know if what he’s saying is true until he says it. “I’ve been standing here for years. I’ve built a fake home, a life, on this exact spot and I haven’t moved. Where I’m standing doesn’t matter.” He turns back to the dirt, which grows darker, wetter, as he digs deeper. “It’s where I choose to go, and how I get there. That’s what’ll decide it.”

“Will.” Hannibal’s voice, a few yards off, floats to him over the soft breeze along with the sound of his footsteps over the pine needles. Will stops moving, leaving his shovel halfway stuck into the increasingly sodden soil, and takes a few deep breaths as he listens to Hannibal draw nearer. He turns around when the sounds of his feet stop and he feels Hannibal’s presence behind him, like a ball of ignited gas, radiating heat.

Hannibal is dressed in a dark blue sweater with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. There’s a bit of color in his cheeks from the brisk walk over, and his hair is loose, falling forward onto his forehead, still wet from a shower he must have taken since Will had left the house. He’s a couple feet above Will, who suddenly finds himself standing in a hole much deeper than he remembered creating.

“Who were you talking to, Will?” Hannibal’s says, curious.

Will looks down, undable to keep Hannibal’s gaze, and laughs a little. “Bedelia, actually,” he says, “I…can’t seem to get her voice out of my head.”

Hannibal tilts his head, “You’ve spoken to her,” he says. It’s not a question.

Will nods, “Yeah, when you were still in prison, I visited her a few times.”

“That may have been unwise, Will,” Hannibal says, the smallest smirk showing more in his eyes than on his lips. “Dr. Du Maurier has a way of getting inside one’s head and sticking.” He leans down and puts his hand out for Will.

“That sounds familiar.” Will smiles as he takes Hannibal’s hand, which feels cold against the heat of his own overworked fingers, and he worries that Hannibal shouldn’t have taken the trek this far from the house to find him. “Did she ever get inside you head, Dr. Lecter?”

Hannibal shows no signs of pain as he helps pull Will from the hole he’s created, and immediately begins to brush dirt and debris from Will’s shirt. “Yes, actually," he says, tone suddenly hushed, careful. "In quiet moments I can still hear her voice. At times I have the feeling she’s observing me, even when I know I’m alone.”

Will catches Hannibal’s glance and holds it. “So it’s not just me, then.”

“No. I’ve often found Bedelia’s observations to be useful, but the truth of them can be disquieting.” Perfect frankness has returned to Hannibal’s voice and Will wonders if he truly doesn’t feel unsettled by what he’s saying. “It is what makes her dangerous. It was perhaps my favorite thing about her.”

Will huffs. “I’m not a fan,” he says. Behind Hannibal the man’s body still lies in the dirt, waiting in silence. Will looks at it almost by accident, and finds he can’t look away so easily.

Hannibal catches his glance and turns to see the body. “You’ve dug him a fine grave, Will,” he says, placing a gentle hand on Will’s arm and drawing himself in.

They stand together, looking down at Will’s handiwork and listening to the sounds of the forest, before Will says, “Is this what you would have done?”

“It doesn’t matter what I would have done.” Hannibal lets his hand fall away and takes a step back. “This is your burden to bear, Will. It is your decision how to relieve yourself of it.” He waits a moment, until Will nods, and then turns back toward the house. “I will leave you to finish up. Hurry back, I have a surprise for you.”

Will watches Hannibal walk off, slim figure soon disappearing among the trees, and feels all the warmth in his body follow after.

***

Will enters the house through the back door leading off the hallway near the pantry and is immediately caught by the smell of food cooking. The sound of something simmering reaches him second, and he’s caught off guard by how suddenly aware he is of his own hunger. They haven’t eaten a full meal, really anything more than broth, in the couple of days since they’d come to this little house, and Will has to force himself to stop and take off his mud-caked boots before he walks unheeding into the kitchen and ruins the warm, comfortable atmosphere Hannibal is no doubt trying to create.

As he struggles with his laces, Hannibal’s voice travels to him from the kitchen, “Did you complete your task, Will?”

“Yes,” Will says, wrestling his boots, also borrowed, from his feet and padding through the hall toward the intoxicating smell. “It’s done.”

Hannibal is chopping something on the island and alternately stirring something on the stove behind him, all precise movements and little flourishes that Will realizes he’s dearly missed seeing. Imprisoned, Hannibal had been so…limited. It makes Will cold to remember that he had, at one point, felt a surge of righteousness watching Hannibal caged. He stops at the end of the hall, eyes fixed on the minute movements of Hannibal’s hands, the look of contentment on his face.

“And how do you feel?” Hannibal glances back at him, and, perhaps seeing the way he's being watched, puts down the knife he’s holding and turns toward him, warmth in his eyes.  He’s wearing a white apron around his waist. He looks, for all intents and purposes, like himself. “Come in, Will.”

Will shakes himself from his frozen state and steps into the full light of the kitchen. “I’m…fine. I think it was the right thing…” he means to say more, but as he comes closer, he can see the ingredients Hannibal has placed around his cutting board—bell peppers, tomatoes, lettuce, carrots—and it occurs to him that they’re impossible. “Where did you get fresh vegetables?” He looks at the small butcher-paper packages open and resting next to the stove behind him. “And meat?”

Hannibal smiles, turning back to his preparations. “This is your surprise. Chiyoh was here less than an hour ago. I assume you didn't hear her drive up, with your chosen burial place being so far away.”

Will blinks. He looks at the front door, then back at Hannibal. “Chiyoh. How did you get a hold of her?” He places himself across the island from Hannibal, who refuses to make eye contact. Only silence follows, permeated by the sounds of a simmering and the delicate, hollow sound of Hannibal’s knife chopping through herb stems. Hannibal’s lips stretch into a knowing smirk, and he takes a small handful of the herbs and adds them to the pan on the stove.

Will sighs, nodding, and looks at the space around them. The counter, he realizes, has more bags of groceries on it, including more fresh produce, and a carton of eggs. At the very end of the counter, sitting separate from the other items, is a bottle of whiskey.

“You told her to get my favorite whiskey,” he says, taking it by the neck and inspecting it closely, as if at any moment it could disappear from his hand as it would in a dream. “You know what my favorite whiskey is." He laughs, "Of course you do.”

“You’ve mentioned it to me several times, Will,” Hannibal says, matter-of-fact, moving deftly around the small kitchen. Only the slightest bit of stiffness is visible in his movements, the only reminder that he is not completely whole.  

“Alright,” Will says, straightening himself and staring pointedly at Hannibal’s back as he stirs the pan on the stove, “you don’t have to tell me how you did this. I just thought at this point we wouldn’t have any need for secrecy.”

Hannibal turns back to the cutting board, and his smirk doesn’t falter as he starts to deconstruct a new set of ingredients. “I believe there are some things about me that must remain mysterious,” he says, “otherwise you will tire of me.”

Will laughs, a genuine and relaxed sound, as he pours two fingers of whiskey into the glass Hannibal had clearly left out for him. He probably shouldn’t be drinking with his injuries, but he isn’t about to pass up a thoughtful gift. “No I won’t,” he says without thinking.

Hannibal stills. His fingers loosen their grip around the knife he’s holding and he looks up at Will, and his eyes behind the blank expression are pained. He blinks, looks away again, and stares at the counter top for a moment, a full breath moving in and out of him. Will senses a decision as Hannibal’s eyes move back up to meet him. “There is something I would like to tell you, Will,” he says.  “I think it’s important that you hear it.”

Will nods, taking a sip of whiskey and feeling a familiar heat move through his chest and into his stomach. “And important that you say it?” They haven’t finished with this, Will realizes, with speaking truths aloud and hoping the other already understands.

Hannibal steps away from the counter. He brings his apron up to wipe his hands. He keeps his eyes firmly on Will. “Everything I’ve done for you, Will,” he says slowly, “everything I’ve done _to_ you, has been because I love you.”

The whiskey has created a pit of warmth that spreads throughout Will’s center, and for a moment it feels as though it may ignite him, burning him up from the inside out, leaving him a pile of ash on the floor. His eyes never leave Hannibal’s as he takes one step, then another, placing himself across from Hannibal. He takes another sip of whiskey, slow, watching the space between Hannibal’s brows furrow slightly in the moment of quiet. Then he smiles, small at first, breaking eye contact and breathing out a sigh aimed at his feet. He nods. “I know,” he says, “It took me a long time to understand…and then to appreciate. But _that_ , Hannibal, that I have known.”

Hannibal regards him carefully, shifting his weight as if he means to move, to turn away, but he doesn’t. A rigidity builds in his chest.

“Good,” he says. It’s curt, and there’s tension sitting in the sinew of his arms and shoulders as he picks up his knife again and begins to shift a small pile of delicately julienned carrots to one side of the cutting board.

Will swills the whiskey in his glass and looks down at the brown liquid as it glints in the light from the windows. It’s getting dimmer now. The sun is starting to slip down on the third day they’ve been in this place together, recovering and reconstituting, moving together in a space that is entirely new, and entirely full of both of them. Will has felt it: the house heaves with the sheer pressure of them, their thoughts and words and all the flighty ideas that aren’t attached to words. The floorboards bow with it, the walls bend outward, ready to burst. 

Will rounds the corners of the island between them, coming to rest just next to Hannibal. He leans casually, drumming his fingertips on the surface of the wood.  “I wish I could say the same,” he says slowly, “Not everything I’ve done to you has been out of love—obviously.” He watches as each word forces the smallest bit of tension from Hannibal’s shoulders like steam from a boiling teapot. “So much of what I’ve done, in my life, has been out of fear,” Will takes a sip of whiskey and keeps the glass close to his mouth, considering. “Or resentment. Or some… need for revenge. I suppose I haven’t had the same clarity of purpose that you have.”

Hannibal looks sideways at Will, but he says nothing.

“And now,” Will continues, “it’s over.  All the situations and complications you orchestrated, all the nudges leading everyone this way and that. You’ve got everyone right where you wanted,” he swallows another small sip, dragging his tongue across the back of his teeth, tasting each golden note, “eventually.”

Hannibal has been so still for so many little moments that it’s almost surprising when he suddenly shakes his head. “Not everyone, Will.” He pauses, his hands move and he watches them, regarding them am if they are not his own. He breathes. “We are still without Abigail. We will always be without her.”

Will nods, feeling that by-now familiar hot weight in his chest that he’s been walking around with for days, maybe longer. Maybe for years. He realizes all at once that it’s guilt. Guilt, and regret, and sorrow, and something else he isn’t sure he wants to name. His voice is gruff as the weight presses in on him and forces its way into his throat. “What are you making us?”

As if he’s been jolted with a few volts of electricity, Hannibal begins to move again, turning around to stir the pan on the stove, a sauce of some kind. “It’s what I was making us that night. When it was supposed to be you, Jack and I. The dinner we never had.” He sighs, “It’s a bit of a simplified version, I’ll admit.”

“This meal was supposed to be an ending.” Will says, coming closer to the stove, to where Hannibal stands watching him.

“Yes. And now it’s a beginning.”

“It’s fitting, then, that it’s simpler.” Will looks up and meets Hannibal’s eyes. “This is simpler.”

“Yes.” All the expression which accompanies the hushed and careful way Hannibal says this is just behind his eyes. He stares directly at Will, roving over each of his features and, possibly inside his mind, trying penetrate Will's thoughts so he can step out ahead of them. He's at a loss, Will can tell by the way his lips press together, and it frightens him. 

The weight in Will’s chest clenches. He sets his glass down next to the stove and takes a couple of steps back. Hannibal’s eyes follow him. He thinks about where they’re standing in this house, about how so many of his most cogent moments have taken place in kitchens. He thinks about how this meal could have been shared so much sooner if not for a hundred little uncertainties he’d harbored, and about how many of those uncertainties have been buried over the years under the hardened layers of one simple, petty little thing. _Want_.  He stares at Hannibal and hears Abigail’s voice like a distant echo in his head.

_Are we going to reenact the crime?_

“Hannibal,” Will says, bringing one arm out in front of him. “Come here.”

Hannibal looks at him, head tilted, a slight frown pulling at his mouth. After a moment, he steps forward, until they’re less than a foot apart. Will reaches for Hannibal’s wrist, lifting his hand to bring it up to his cheek. Hannibal’s fingers graze lightly over the bandage there, careful not to press in on the wound.

“This is how it was, wasn’t it?” Will says, “Last time.”

Hannibal blinks and Will can see now that the slightest bit of wetness clings to his eyelashes. His jaw is set, and his fingers twitch on Will’s face. “Yes. Except I don’t have a knife for you now, Will.”

Will nods, “And I don’t have one for you.”

Hannibal’s eyes travel over Will’s face and down, to observe the space between them. “Will…” he says, his voice low.

“I’ve realized something,” Will says, pushing forward. “That we’ve been suspended in this moment for a long time.”

Hannibal nods, “Like flies in amber.”

“Yes. Everything that’s happened between then and now has just been more of the same thing. Hurting each other, creating new scars…and leaving. Over and over and over. And maybe,” he lets out a long, shaking breath, “this is how we fix it. We do this moment again. Differently.”

Hannibal is watching his own hand, still cradling Will’s cheek. “It won’t make time reverse,” he breathes out. “The teacup won’t come together.”

Will smiles sadly at the old phrase that has come to mean so many things to him. “No. That’s not how it works. But we can still rebuild it.” He takes a step forward, placing his hand on Hannibal’s shoulder and feeling Hannibal shudder. “There are…cracks. Pieces missing. But it’s still there. Salvagable.”

Hannibal brings his hand around to the back of Will’s neck, his other arm reaching, not to slice through Will, or tear him open, but to graze his back, pull him in, until almost every part of them is touching lightly. It’s just the same, Will thinks, except neither of them is bleeding. Just the same, down to the feeling of searing heat in his belly and his breath coming to him in quick bursts. His eyes drop to Hannibal’s lips and he watches them say his name, one more time, before Hannibal closes the gap between them and they’re clinging to each other, lips pressed together desperately, and there’s heat and breath and the feeling of Hannibal’s fingers gripping his hair. The static bolt of electricity that seems to radiate from Hannibal at all times is inside him now, completing the current that races through both of them, charging every molecule.

They are in Hannibal's kitchen in Baltimore, and Hannibal is grasping at Will's soaking wet clothing, wringing the water from him everywhere he touches like he is wringing out every bit of poison that has built up between them. They are on the cliff overlooking the ocean, and Will is telling Hannibal _it's beautiful_ , over and over again, words falling on the skin of his neck, his jaw, before Hannibal takes his mouth back and devours the words whole. They are standing here, in this new place that is so full of them, filling it further with the sounds of their breath, the soft smack of their lips moving together, the clatter of dishes as Hannibal backs Will into the island, nearly smothering him with his closeness. 

Behind the overwhelming sensations, the smell of Hannibal's shampoo, the pools of warmth bursting into existence at every place Hannibal is touching him, a thought, distant and fleeting, reminds him that this, too, was probably inevitable.

It’s only when Hannibal finally pulls away and Will looks at him through a haze of wetness in his eyes that he realizes he’s been crying. Hannibal’s eyes are wet too, and one tear has made its way down his cheek and fallen away. Will brings his arms up to grip Hannibal by the shoulders and pulls him close again, placing his face in the crook of Hannibal’s neck, breathing several long breaths into his skin. Hannibal’s arms encircle him, hand still patting his head, fingers dragging lightly through his hair. After several long moments, Will feels Hannibal’s chest shake slightly, air escaping his lips in quick bursts, and realizes he’s laughing.

“Will,” he whispers, “my sauce is going to burn.”

And suddenly Will is laughing too. He pulls away and smiles at Hannibal through the tears that still sit in his eyes, unshed, and they both stand there a moment, breathing, before Hannibal reaches back to hand Will his whiskey glass.

“Let me finish making you dinner,” he says, and there’s a softness in his voice that’s new to Will.  “That will be the best way to complete this new moment, don’t you think?”

Will nods.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I lied there are technically 5 "chapters" since this one got pretty long and I decided to add the last part as an epilogue. But either way the story is complete now. 
> 
> Thanks again to everyone who's been commenting so far! I really appreciate it. I'm still really on the fence about how I feel about this last chapter so I appreciate any comments on what you think. 
> 
> Thanks!


	5. Epilogue

There isn’t much for them to pack. Almost nothing, really. The few fresh food items Hannibal didn’t use up on dinner or this morning’s breakfast will come along in a cooler. Will puts together a bag of bandages, pain medications, and a couple extra sets of clothing for them. Hannibal steps outside to speak to Chiyoh on a cell phone Will can only presume has been here the whole time, but he doesn’t ask.

Chiyoh will help them leave. They’ll meet, switch vehicles, and she’ll dispose of the car they took from the man, the car that got them here. She’ll have travel papers for them. He’s a little hazy on the exact plan after that, but Hannibal seems to have several ideas to deal with any eventuality.

They hadn’t known where they would go most immediately until this morning. Hannibal had looked at him over breakfast and asked if Bedelia’s voice was still bothering him now that he’d buried the man, and perhaps some of his guilt.

Will had shrugged, “I don’t know as I’m completely rid of her. I’m sure she’d have plenty to say about anything we plan to do from now on.”

Hannibal had nodded, “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Bedelia, but I still hear her voice, particularly in moments when I’m standing at a crossroads.”

Will continued to eat quietly for a few minutes before a thought came to him, one that he’d forgotten, and he snorted suddenly over his eggs. “The last thing she said to me,” he said while Hannibal stared, “when I told her our plan to break you out. She called me a “righteous, reckless, twitchy little man.” Will smiled. “I’d forgotten. I’ve never seen her so afraid before.”

A smirk lit in Hannibal’s eyes for a moment, but it never reached his mouth. His voice remained serious as he stabbed at the eggs on his plate. “What an incredibly rude thing for her to say. Even in fear.” Hannibal chewed and swallowed his next bite looking pensive, then said, “Do you think it would be helpful to you to pay her a visit? Perhaps to receive some closure on your professional relationship with her?”

Will leaned back in his chair, “I don’t know Dr. Lecter, would you find it useful to receive closure on your less-than-professional relationship with her?”

Finally, Hannibal lets a grin light his face. “I believe I would, yes.”

 

Will piles up what little they have to take with them near the front door and waits. A few minutes later, Hannibal enters. “Chiyoh will meet us an hour south of here. She says Bedelia has moved out of her house in the recent days, but it shouldn’t be difficult to track her.”

Will nods and grabs their bags. Hannibal brings his hand to Will’s good cheek for a moment, his thumb brushing softly there, before stepping outside again and heading for the car. Will turns around, unable to leave without having one look back at the little house, full of dappled sunlight, and old wood, and now, the imprint the two of them had made upon it. He stands there for a long time, breathing, feeling more acutely than ever that he is standing on a precipice, the exact place he’s been standing for a very long time. It’s time to leave now.

“Will,” Hannibal’s voice is behind him. He turns to see Hannibal just outside, holding his hand out to him. “Are we ready?”

Will looks at Hannibal, then closes his eyes for a moment and feels heat like flames rising up in front of him. This is not the gaping maw of hell ready to swallow him. He knows that now. He is not being dragged anywhere, weighed down by fear and uncertainty. He knows where he is going, and how he will get there. If it is hell, then he sees no reason to fear it.

“Yes,” he says, and grips Hannibal’s hand tightly. 


End file.
